Running on Glass

Although there’s a plethora of paved and manicured trails in the Twin Cities area, I’m having trouble finding close and accessible trails to my house (I have a 20 month old son at home who needs his naps, which shrinks my optimal running time and distance).  Even though I’m training for the Afton Trail Run, I’ve been doing a lot of running on the aforementioned streets and manicured (crushed limestone) trails and, yes, the basement treadmill.

While I would love to spend every day running outside on trails, that’s just not a possibility at the moment.  Once the weather gets warmer I’ll be venturing out more and experimenting with trails in the vicinity of the Twin Cities (Theodore Wirth, Murphy, Carver) and other parks and trails throughout Minnesota.

Today I was able to run outside and for the first time experiment with my new trail shoes on some actual trails. These were short and nontechnical trails in some local parks in Minnetonka, but they were fun to run nonetheless. Because the weather has been unseasonably warm last few days and there has been a lot of recent thawing, the trails were mostly covered with ice and very, very, slippery ice, as ice is wont to do.

Icy path

At first I was tentative about this and ran cautiously, but barely over a mile into my run I slipped, fell, and hit the dirt. And that’s when…my run got fun. See, I have the opportunity to run on straight and paved surfaces every single day. I can put ear buds in and listen to music and tune out. All I have to do is follow the pavement or concrete in front of me. But on trails, where the conditions are not always the same and you’re forced to pay attention to your surroundings, its so much more invigorating. When there’s the potential to fall, slip, stub your toe, get muddy, catch a branch or worse, your body is tuned to the environment around you.

Here in Minnesota, we don’t have the luxury of running in mountains, but we do have snow and ice and cold. And if that’s all I can get during these months, I’ll take it. It sure beats running only on man-made surfaces.